A STATEMENT ON MORTGAGE FRAUD THAT EVERY ATTORNEY GENERAL COULD ISSUE TODAY

There has been widespread, well-documented abuse of corporate officer titles by banks, mortgage companies and mortgage servicing companies on mortgage-related documents. Individuals who are not corporate officers have been directed to sign as if they were corporate officers, particularly on documents used as evidence in mortgage foreclosure cases.

These individuals most often lack education, experience and training that would otherwise qualify them to be a corporate officer.

These individuals often list addresses directly underneath their signatures where they are not and never have been physically located.

In many cases, a designee of the board of directors authorizes such signing by issuing a corporate resolution authorizing this very limited use of the corporate officer title.

In many cases, a corporate resolution is also used to authorize non-employees (individuals employed by other corporations) to sign as officers of banks, mortgage companies and mortgage servicing companies.

The individuals signing as corporate officers are not disclosed as corporate officers on corporations’ annual filings with the state Division of Corporations.

The individuals signing as corporate officers are not disclosed as corporate officers to insurance companies that issue Director & Officer policies or other insurance policies.

In the mortgage industry, MERS (the Mortgage Electronic Registration System) allows corporate officers of its members to sign as corporate officers of MERS.

The Limited Purpose Corporate Officers often sign as MERS officers. EXAMPLE: Linda Green, a former employee of a mortgage servicing company, Lender Processing Services, signed thousands of mortgage documents as a corporate officer of American Home Mortgage, American Brokers Conduit, American Home Mortgage Acceptance, and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.

Judges, county recorders, homeowners, home buyers, title insurers and others have given undeserved credence to mortgage documents that have been signed by these Limited Purpose Corporate Officers, not knowing that an individual signing as an officer of a bank or mortgage company was not, in fact, even a clerical employee of that bank or mortgage company.

It is the determination of the Attorney General that such use of Limited Purpose Corporate Officer titles on mortgage documents is an Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practice and must cease immediately.

All individuals signing mortgage-related documents:

1. must sign their own names using a full signature (not a check mark, initials or other symbol);

2. must set forth immediately underneath their signature the name of their actual employer and the address of their employer where they were located when they signed the document;

3. no corporate officer title may be used unless such officer is an officer for all purposes.